I don't know if you're aware of the details of the DA you mentioned previously, but he won't prosecute these crimes, so they'll be back to steal again in a few hours.

He won't even prosecute DUIs or home robberies; they're 'victimless'.

Someone who committed robbery was out committing another robbery, and DUI, on New Years Eve and fatally ran over two young women in a hit-and-run. [1]

A prominent investor, Cyan Banister, has delayed deleting Twitter solely to help the Recall Chesa campaign [2], because the DA is still in office, destroying the city and countless lives.

I genuinely believe that Chesa's parents being found guilty of murder and not being around to raise him [3] likely impacts him and his policy to this day; that's more than a kid should ever have to go through. I hope he finds peace, but not at the cost of an entire city [4].

[1] https://abc7news.com/pedestrian-safety-sf-san-francisco-hit-... [2] https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-burglary-da-chesa-boudin-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin [4] https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/lawlessness-in-san-fra...

In fact I am aware of that, which is the whole premise of this thread. As I mentioned elsewhere, the police can do things to affect a situation even if they don't lead to a conviction. The question is why they may choose not to.

As much as we hate to admit it the threat of punishment probably has some amount of deterrent effect on crime. If a particular crime is sure not to be punished then people will make a different calculation when deciding whether to do that crime.

The pendulum is going to swing the other way on this stuff. The only question is how painful it's going to get before people realize that we need both carrots and sticks.

Literally what is the point of stopping him if he will not be convicted and will be back at the store with his suitcase within a week?

Are you expecting police to be posted at the doors of all these stores?

Yes, because crime is so bad that almost every department, convenience, and grocery store has armed security patrolling outside and guarding the entrance. This isn't a thing in other cities. Even in the south side of Chicago. As a new transplant to SF it seems like shoplifting is actually encouraged here. If I was poor and broke, i would 100% be shoplifting every day. Could probably make a pretty easy 50k a year shoplifting tactically.

Of course not, my point is that there are things the police can do without a conviction, and they do those things in many circumstances. For example, police can famously seize property they believe was involved in a crime.

If it were truly impossible to follow up on someone stealing in broad daylight, that would be the case whether they could secure a conviction or not. If there are officers nearby (as there often are near downtown Walgreens), you might think they would respond once in a while. Presumably they are not, or the staff wouldn't be under the impression that they "don't care".